A/N: This is my adopted pairing for the final round of the Yugioh fanfiction season 9.75. One day, I might expand this story, because I think it's an AU I could do a lot more with. If anyone would be interested in more being added to this story, please let me know in a review.
Sensory Failure
Mai Kujaku's legacy lived on long after she graduated and the academy shut down.
"I heard she was crowned Queen her senior year, and they didn't even have a King."
"I heard she threw a teacher who kept hitting on first-year girls out a window!"
"Well, someone told me she drove her convertible onto the tennis courts when she was chasing down some guy who broke her friend's heart."
The stories ranged from mesmerizing to ludicrous, sometimes caricaturizing Mai into a femme vigilante who exacted justice on anyone who crossed either her or the sacred concept of sisterhood. Shizuka didn't believe many of them, but she did believe in the power of the person they lauded. She'd found the yearbooks in a taped-up cardboard box under her bed her second day at the Lab and afterwards spent hours poring over the pages featuring Mai.
Violet eyes, golden hair, and red lips that smiled with fierce pride. Shizuka memorized her elegant features and dreamed of her bursting through the Lab's front doors in her bold outfit, kicking away angry scientists with those lavender boots and burning their research to ashes. Sometimes, Shizuka could only sleep with one of the yearbooks clutched to her chest. When her eyesight completely left her, she had to rely on swiftly fading mental images that could never do Mai justice.
Shizuka often wished for Mai's courage. All the stories about her emphasized that trait in particular, her unwillingless to back down no matter who or what she faced. She would never curl up in her bed and attempt to outwait the horrors in store for her. She wouldn't be like Shizuka, who froze every time footsteps neared her room.
So Shizuka made a promise. She would be brave like Mai, until the Lab realized their mistake and released her. It wasn't as impressive as fighting back, but holding on would have to be enough.
/.../
Without much to occupy her time, Shizuka sometimes she spent the whole afternoon imagining what her roommate's voice might have sounded like. Her eyesight had given out before they'd been paired together, so she couldn't guess based on appearance. Arisu was friendly, serving as Shizuka's eyes and keeping the floor clear of things she might trip on, so Shizuka liked to think it had been a warm voice, sweet like candy or maybe soothing like silk.
To fill the silence that Arisu's muteness would never be able to combat, Shizuka talked to her about the days before her arrest. She told stories about her friends or repeated the rumors she'd heard about Mai, though Arisu didn't seem as interested in the local legend as she was. When Arisu wanted to talk back, she'd trace letters along Shizuka's arm. After each word, Shizuka would say what she'd felt and receive a tap on her palm. One tap meant right, two meant wrong.
The only other person Shizuka had to communicate with was a cranky old scientist who relentlessly questioned her. Shizuka never had anything new to say. "My blindness isn't special," she explained over and over. "It's just... darkness." When he got fed up with her, he'd hand her over to the guards to be escorted back to her room, but only after informing her that the Lab would not put up with her lies and resistance much longer.
It was different for Arisu. She would return from her sessions and barely reach her bed before collapsing. Shizuka would go to her and hold her trembling body until she relaxed. She never pried, but she couldn't help but wonder what terrible language they summoned from her.
Shizuka realized too late that she should've lied to the scientists. She could have made up something symptomatic of the disease every girl in the Lab was thought to have. Every discovery at this early stage was exciting for the guards as well as the scientists, after all, and gossip spread new theories and revelations.
"You're the only one who hasn't aided our research at all," the old scientist told her one morning. "This is your last chance."
"But I haven't seen anything."
"Fine. If it has to be this way..."
When Shizuka was locked back into her room, she found Arisu missing. She was gone longer than usual. Shizuka paced nervously until the door opened, then all but threw herself at Arisu. But Arisu shoved past her and sank, not onto her bed, but to the floor beside it. Shizuka took a deep breath and knelt beside her. She reached out and found her face wet with tears. This time Arisu did not push her away, and Shizuka discovered what had happened. Her hands were covered with bandages, and where Shizuka expected to find long, graceful fingers, there were stubs.
A guard spoke from the open door. "Message for you, Shizuka. If you won't talk to us, Arisu won't be able to talk to you."
Arisu cried silently and Shizuka with chokes and gasps long into the night. And still, she could not please the scientist. She tried to lie, but found it harder to construct a vision than expected. They isolated her in a small room, and while she missed Arisu, she was glad she wouldn't be able to bring any more harm to the girl who probably hated her now.
/.../
Shizuka woke up to two unnerving sounds: a loud crash, then light footsteps pattering to her bed. She drew the cover up around her shoulders and bit her lip. A woman whose voice she didn't recognize said, "Hi. Are you Shizuka Kawai?"
She didn't respond, suspicious of everyone in the Lab anyway but especially one that broke into her room, but the other woman wasn't discouraged. "I think you are. My name is Anzu Mazaki. I'm here to bust you out."
"Why me?" Shizuka managed. She slowly released the cover, but didn't make a move towards the woman.
"It's all part of her plan."
"Who?"
"Mai Kujaku." Anzu continued to explain the necessity of getting Shizuka out now, before any guards came to investigate the noise she'd made when cutting a hole in the ceiling. The words were nonsense to Shizuka; she was sure she was either dreaming or delusional. The woman she idolized couldn't possibly be saving her.
Seeing Shizuka's reluctance, Anzu grasped her hands. "Please believe me." Her skin was soft and warm, so unlike Shizuka's cold, nervous fingers. "A long time ago, Mai met a guy named Katsuya Jonouchi, and she wants to repay him for the favor he did for her then."
"Katsuya?" Shizuka cried in surprise. "He's my older brother!" It had been a cool spring day when Shizuka had last seen him. She'd been just five at the time, and thanks to her parents' divorce, she hadn't seen him since. She glumly remembered that she never would have the opportunity again, even if he materialized right in front of her.
"He's- well, he's something else." Shizuka giggled, warming up to Anzu now that she knew she'd met her brother. "Darn it, I think I hear someone coming..." Those careful, rhythmic footsteps made their way to the door and back. "We have to go, Shizuka." Shizuka nodded and found herself being boosted onto a chair.
"Feel that rope? Just climb it a bit, and you'll be in the ventilation system. I'll catch you if you fall, okay?"
The rope felt too thin to support her, but she remembered her desire to be brave like Mai, who had sent her savior. She climbed into a musty space and Anzu joined her moments later. Directions were whispered from behind her as they crawled though the tight labyrinthine vent. "We're here," Anzu said finally. She reached past Shizuka and removed a loose metal plate. Shizuka felt the sun's warmth infiltrate the tunnel, and she crawled forward eagerly; it had been so long since she'd been outside. A hand caught the back of her shirt. "Careful! There's a drop, so I'll go first." Shizuka waited until Anzu wriggled past and called up to her from the ground. "Hold on to the ledge and lower yourself down first. It's not far."
Shizuka did as she said. She stumbled a bit when she hit the ground, but Anzu steadied her. "Now run," she said. They scurried over grass and pebbles, hand in hand.
The purr of an engine signaled their destination. "Mai!" Anzu said with glee. "I got her!"
"Great work, Anzu." A voice full of confidence reached Shizuka's ears. She halted, forcing Anzu to tug her forward and help her into the car. It was obviously a convertible, maybe even the one featuring in Mai's legends, and the seats were a comfortable leather. She scooted to the middle to make room for Anzu.
An arm wrapped around her shoulder and gave her a friendly squeeze. "Hey, Shizuka. I'm Mai. It's nice to meet you." The sentence was punctuated by her foot slamming on the pedal and her loud laugh at the guards who cursed at them as they flew by. The sudden speed made Shizuka almost hit the dashboard, but a hand on either side of her secured her. Anzu fixed her seatbelt to prevent future mishaps. Shizuka gripped it with sweaty palms, and she did not know if her pulse was racing because of the speed or because of her sudden proximity with her idol.
More enraged shouts came, then silence, then the steady roar of traffic. Shizuka guessed that Mai was not a very considerate driver when, more than once, she felt the car swerve around some obstacle, and she would've sworn that she drove on the sidewalk to bypass a stalled intersection.
Anzu described the landscape and the cities they passed through along the way. Shizuka was glad she wasn't expected to add to the conversation. She listened to Anzu's kind voice and tried to picture the places around them. The Lab was far from her hometown, so none of it sounded familiar.
Eventually there was only a long stretch of road with few buildings and other cars. Mai switched on the radio and hummed along to an old rock song. Shizuka worked up the nerve to sing a few lines, for which she received praise.
"You're a really good singer!" Anzu said.
"I don't know about that..."
"It's the truth," Mai affirmed, and Shizuka argued no more. Another song played, then Anzu posed a question.
"How long were you at the Lab, Shizuka?"
"Three months."
Mai muttered under her breath, "Those pitiful excuses for human beings, I can't believe how far they're going..."
"I don't like them," Shizuka said. "They-" She remembered Arisu's mutilated hands, and tears sprung to her sightless eyes. Anzu patted her shoulder, but it didn't help comfort her. "Can't we save them all? All the girls staying there?"
"That's the plan," Mai said approvingly. "We couldn't do that today, because we don't know enough about the layout. A lot of things have changed since it was our academy. But you can help us fix that. You've been there long enough to give us the inside information we need."
Shizuka wondered if that were true. She'd interacted much less with the scientists and guards than the other girls, thanks to her lack of the side effects they were interested in. But she didn't want to disappoint Mai, so she kept quiet.
After another hour, the car slowed to a stop. "We're home," Anzu announced, helping Shizuka out of the car.
Inside the building, Shizuka was handed a change of clothes and showed to the bathroom. She was grateful for the shower; they had been far too scarce at the Lab. With her deep auburn hair wrapped in a towel and dressed in clothes a size too big, she sat at a table with Anzu and Mai. "Are we going to talk about the Lab now?" she asked.
"First, Anzu and I are going to discuss what she learned today from breaking in. You rest, okay? We made some dinner, and there's plenty more if you get hungry." A plate was pushed in front of her and chopsticks placed in her hand. "Yakisoba with chicken. Eat up!"
/.../
Shizuka slept well that night, snug under layers of borrowed blankets. When she woke, she experienced the darkness that still jarred her each morning. She had no time to dwell on her own sorrow, though. She'd relaxed, and now she wanted them to let her help.
She ventured into the hallway and, with one hand on the wall, followed the path to the bathroom. On the way, she heard Anzu and Mai speaking in low tones in what Shizuka guessed was another bedroom. It was no problem for her heightened hearing to make out their hushed words. She expected them to be battle plans, since that was all they'd talked about the night before, but what they were actually saying to one another made Shizuka blush. This was not a conversation meant to be eavesdropped on. She rushed on to the bathroom, and when she emerged, her hosts had moved to the kitchen and invited her to sit down for breakfast.
Between mouthfuls of scrambled egg and rice, Shizuka asked if Mai would tell her how she'd known her brother.
"Oh, sure," said Mai, wiping her mouth with a napkin. "It was about four years ago, wasn't it, Anzu? When we were still at the academy. Actually, the beginning of this is Anzu's story more than mine..."
Anzu urged, "You tell it."
"Fine. Anzu was a first-year when I was a third-year, so naturally we didn't know each other at first. She hung out with these twins, Yugi and Atem, most of the time."
"They're both great," Anzu chimed in. "At first you'd think they were opposites, but actually-"
"I thought you wanted me to tell the story?" Mai teased.
"Sorry, go on!"
Mai laughed. "So anyway, Anzu and I finally met after winter break when we ended up with a class together. We hit it off pretty easily."
Shizuka thought she heard the tell-tale noise of two pairs of lips meeting in quick peck, but she wasn't sure.
"Then the school got a new principal. He hated Atem from the start. A lot of authority figures do, Anzu tells me. He's a good person, but as arrogant as they come, and he bent rules when it suited him. In the end, he expelled Atem, which got Yugi and Anzu involved."
"What happened next?" Shizuka asked, wanting to hear how her brother played into all this.
"They got expelled, too. I was pissed beyond belief. I didn't know Atem or Yugi that well, but Anzu was a different story. But no matter what I did, I couldn't convince the principal to change his decision. When it looked like he'd expel me too, I got frustrated and left. I had no idea what to do, until this guy approached me. He said his name was Jonouchi, and that he wanted to repay Yugi and Atem's kindness toward him by getting their punishment reversed. He'd heard I was trying to bring Anzu back, so he thought we could work together to come up with a plan.
"Finally, we did. It took some sneaking around- Jonouchi's pretty skilled with a paperclip, you know. He broke into the principal's office single-handedly, where I found a few suspicious files that led me to believe he was embezzling from school funds. When we had enough evidence, we busted him, and his expulsions were overridden."
"That's amazing." Shizuka was on the edge of her seat. Mai Kujaku truly lived up to the rumors about her, and she'd never known anybody who could claim that. "I'm glad it worked out. I'm kind of jealous, though, that you got to see my brother... And that he got to see you," she admitted.
"Really?"
"Yeah. I haven't seen him since our parents divorced, and I've heard so much about you that I wanted to meet you for awhile before Anzu came." She felt herself blush at the admission, but she didn't lower her head.
"...I wish you wouldn't say that." Suddenly Mai sounded upset, and Shizuka heard her stand and leave the room, her heels clicking on the floor as she disappeared.
Shizuka was crestfallen. "What happened? What did I say?"
"Don't worry about it." Anzu brushed Shizuka's hair, messy from sleep, behind her ear. "But I think it's okay to tell you. Mai, she blames herself for a lot of what's happened since the epidemic broke out. I don't know how much you heard on the news before you were arrested or if anything else was explained in the Lab, so I'll summarize it the best I can.
"The epidemic has officially been linked to water pollution that happened over ten years ago. A pharmaceutical company that was an offshoot of KaibaCorp was creating extremely experimental drugs, but they all proved too dangerous to give to humans, so they disposed of them. But they didn't do it like they were supposed to, and a lot of it ended up in the water supply of a couple of cities. One where the academy- now the Lab- was, and one about twenty miles north of it. They still don't know exactly how the chemicals in the water are altering people's senses- or maybe they do, and they don't want the public to know. But obviously they don't know a lot about it, since they've quarantined everyone afflicted by it to study at the Lab."
"But what does Mai have-"
"I'm getting to that. Her parents were in charge of the clinical trials of the experimental drugs, so they were part of the team that dealt with disposal. But they were careless, because they thought it was a menial task, and just pushed it off on the others. When they found out they'd polluted the water supply, they covered it up for them, but didn't worry about it too much. Not until a few years ago, when the first cases were reported. They figured out the link even before the government, and they- they hung themselves. They couldn't handle the guilt. That wasn't long after Mai and I met..."
"But none of this is her fault," Shizuka said. "She can't be blamed for what her parents or the pharmaceutical company did."
"I know, and she knows that, really, but she wants to make things right. Especially since the chemicals are only altering the genes of females. Well, they affect males too, but they just die from the contact."
"This is so confusing," Shizuka sighed. "I knew it had something to do with the water supply, but how are they stopping people from still getting sick? A bunch of people in my city got diagnosed, and we don't live anywhere near the Lab. They said maybe bottled water carried the disease."
"The scientists don't even care about that," Anzu said. "They probably want there to be more cases."
"Because they want to use us." Shizuka'd known this, but it was still hard to wrap her mind around such a high level of cruelty. Then something occurred to her. "Does everyone who drinks the polluted water get sick?"
"No, or else Mai and I would be locked up with all of our former classmates from the academy. It just doesn't seem to affect everyone's body, which I'm sure is something else they're studying. But some people become carriers of the disease. There's a test for that, and Mai and I are both carriers."
"What does that mean?"
"It means we have to be careful about hanging around uninfected people, but as long as they don't drink after us or anything like that, it shouldn't spread." Anzu rose. "I'm gonna go check on Mai. Think about what you learned in the Lab, all right? We'll starting making plans this morning."
/.../
Shizuka exhausted every bit of information she knew about the Lab: the guards' personalities and duties, the scientists' interrogations, the layout of the old academy dorm rooms around the central research center. She heard the diligent scratching of pen on paper as she talked, and every now and then Mai or Anzu would ask a question. Shizuka even learned something, that there was a dorm designated solely for carriers of the disease, and that males, while they did not develop the disease, could carry it. So the morning went, and when she ran out of things to say and they were satisfied they had a full account, Shizuka said what she'd wanted to from the start. "Mai, you don't have to feel guilty about me. I don't think you should feel guilty at all, but I can say for sure that you aren't connected to my blindness."
Mai asked, "What do you mean?"
"It's like I tried to tell the scientists, but they never listened to me. I don't have the sensory disease, the one they're studying. My eyesight has never been good, and a doctor told me I would probably go blind one day if I didn't have an operation my family couldn't afford. It was just bad timing, that that day was coming close when other people in my city got sick. They thought I had the same thing and took me away too."
She thought this news would relieve Mai, but instead, Mai cursed. "Shizuka, Anzu said she told you about us being carriers. If you aren't sick, you could get sick now! If you go deaf, too, or-" She breathed in sharply. "Anzu, we have to hide her somewhere else. She probably won't catch it, but we can't risk that."
"No! I don't want to go away!" Shizuka knew she had their full attention when she heard Mai sit back down and they waited silently for her to go on. "Even if you two are carriers, I don't care. I want to stay here and help you two. I want to free Arisu, and everyone else! Please!"
Anzu said, "She's right, Mai. She has a friend there, and they've wronged her personally. We can't make her go if she wants to stay and fight." Shizuka brightened at her support.
After a moment, Mai chuckled. "You're brave. I can definitely see it, your relation to Jonouchi."
"I don't think I'm that brave. But I want to be."
They each took her hand and joined their own as well. "We'll do it," Anzu said. "We'll end this."
That evening, Mai left the hideout to meet with some employees of KaibaCorp. Apparently, the CEO's own stepson was willing to help destroy the Lab, and with it his stepfather's interest in it. She promised to be back by midnight with new information.
Anzu laughed, "It's so weird to have free time. We've been so busy..." She reclined on the couch near Shizuka and switched the television on. Shizuka listened for awhile to a drama supplemented by descriptions of the action by Anzu, but her mind soon drifted. So much had happened to her in such a short amount of time. She missed her mother, but had agreed that contacting her would be too dangerous while she was working with Mai and Anzu. She wondered how her pet cat was doing without her, and if she still slept on her bed every night. She wondered if Katsuya ever thought about his sister.
The light came in such tiny increments that Shizuka did not notice it at first. Then, with sudden force, her field of vision was completely illuminated. She screamed, because it hurt, this brightness after months of nothing. It was not a pleasant light, so Shizuka did not mistake this for a medical miracle. She was vaguely aware that Anzu was shaking her, but she couldn't hear anything or see anything besides the blinding whiteness.
Eventually, a figure formed in the light. The shape was fuzzy but humanlike, and as it sharpened Shizuka could see that it was a boy. He was facing away from her, so she could only see one of his wide green eyes. She screamed again when he held up a bleeding arm and collected some of the red liquid on his forefinger. As though the light was tangible, he wrote on it with his blood. Four capital letters flashed before her eyes, then everything returned to familiar black.
She collapsed into strong, steady arms and mumbled "cure, cure, cure" until she lost consciousness.
/.../
"You're sure it was a vision?"
"I mean, I think so, but I guess she could have heard something."
Worried voices lingered over her. Shizuka tried to nod, to let them know it had been a vision, but she was too weak. She lay still as hands adjusted her pillow and blanket.
"It's ironic, isn't it? At least we know she didn't catch it from us. It wouldn't have happened this soon. Must be from the Lab. And she wouldn't have known it was coming, since she was blind anyway."
"What do you think the visions are like, Mai?"
"How should I know?"
"...Remember that girl who stayed with before?"
"You're talking about Kisara."
"Yeah."
"Of course I remember, she helped us figure out a lot about the disease."
"She wrote down what it was like to hear something, from the deafness variation. And she said it hurt. I hope Shizuka's okay."
Shizuka realized again the urgency of freeing everyone from the Lab. If they all felt such pain from the side effects of the disease, then being without a cure was torture.
Cure cure cure. She stirred, remembering the boy from the vision.
"I think she moved!"
A hand stroked her hair. Shizuka leaned into the touch.
"It's okay, Shizuka," Anzu said. "We're both here."
"Speaking of Kisara," Mai went on after taking a seat closer to the bed, "I saw her tonight."
"What? Really?" The stroking stopped for a moment as Anzu considered that.
"Seems like the CEO's stepson has a thing for her. It's too bad, she's such a sweet girl and he's such a... Kaiba."
"We should wait until Shizuka wakes up to talk about the meeting."
"...awake..." Shizuka mumbled.
"Are you sure, Shizuka?" She managed a slight nod. "All right. So I met with Seto Kaiba, Kisara, and a couple of guys who didn't volunteer their names. Seto's pretty disgusted with KaibaCorp's intention to use the girls as potential weapons. Some of the higher-ups of KC are even serving as scientists in the Lab, working on manipulating the side effects into something they can use. Apparently, he's not that interested in getting rid of the Lab. He thinks the best course of action is finding a cure."
Cure cure cure.
"That's what they're working on. Kisara's volunteered herself to test the medicines they come up with."
"But what do we do? We're not exactly scientists with a ton of resources at our disposal..."
"Yeah. Nothing we can do for them," Mai said bitterly.
"Mai, what's wrong? The meeting obviously didn't go well, but we were too worried about Shizuka to talk about it earlier. Just what did they say?"
She sighed. "They knew we'd broken someone out and they wanted to have her to test cures on too. I'm not happy about Kisara doing it herself, but I saw in her eyes she couldn't be convinced otherwise. But I won't let them use anyone else. It's too risky, and we need Shizuka here, anyway. So don't worry, you're staying right here." Laughing to herself, she murmured, "Jonouchi would find me and kill me if he found out I'd handed you over to Seto."
With enormous effort, Shizuka was able to sit up a few minutes later. Mai and Anzu were waiting with a glass of water and some aspirin, in case she was still in pain. She accepted the water but waved the pills away.
She could almost feel their curious gazes burning into her, so she decided to bring up the vision herself. "I saw something. There was a boy, I think, and he was writing- writing on a wall." For some reason, she left out the part about his ink being blood. "He wrote the word 'cure.' Do you think it has anything to do with what Seto Kaiba is doing?"
"Maybe..." Mai sounded thoughtful. "But visions normally reflect something going on in the present somewhere else in the world. I was with Seto's group, unless there were more of them hiding somewhere."
Shizuka had thought once that the blindness variation of the disease was the most frightening. Maybe it was because she'd always valued her eyesight, knowing one day it would be gone, so the thought of seeing things that weren't really happening around one sounded terribly creepy.
The mutes, like Arisu, could hear things being spoken in foreign languages and repeat them verbatim. It was the only time they could talk, when they were channeling the words of someone far away. The girls who lost their hearing sometimes regained it with startling intensity, and they would be able to eavesdrop on someone miles away. The rarest form was seen in those who lost the ability to feel any sensation: heat, cold, pain. The scientists liked them best, because they could be used in situations other humans couldn't exist in. Unlike the other girls, when they experienced the reversal side effect, it was when they were least valuable to the scientists. They would suddenly feel everything with great intensity, and Shizuka knew several girls who had died from unbearable agony.
The blind ones, as Mai'd said, saw things that were happening in other parts of the world. It could be one person or many, or just something from nature. Whatever vision they had normally dealt with whatever their mind most often focused on. Shizuka assumed that was why she'd seen someone working on a cure. It had to be for the sensory disease, because that was all Shizuka thought about anymore.
"I'm sorry you got sick, Shizuka," Mai said. "But we won't let the Lab touch you. You'll have to deal with the visions, but hopefully they won't be frequent-"
"I want them to be," Shizuka interrupted. "I- I think I can help this way."
"Are you sure?" Anzu asked. "We wouldn't ask you to do this."
"I'm sure."
Hearing the firmness in her voice, neither Mai nor Anzu gave any further argument. Instead, they gave her a quick kiss on either of her cheeks in unison, and Shizuka, blushing furiously, gulped down the rest of her water when they released her.
/.../
It was a slow process. Her visions occurred randomly; sometimes she saw the same boy, but he wasn't doing anything. At least now she had a clear picture of him. He was a little older than her, with pale skin and long white hair. She felt bad for trespassing on his privacy, though she hadn't exactly asked for the visions in the first place.
At Anzu's suggestion, she started paying closer attention to his surroundings, to see if anything could identify him. School papers that fell out of his backpack told her his last name was Bakura. She watched him sign a letter as Ryou a few days later and then he was a cinch for Mai to locate. They decided not to approach him until Shizuka had fully discerned his link with the sensory disease.
One day, Shizuka watched him poring over an old book when his head sprang up and he spoke to himself in rapid, excited fragments. "It was like that in Egypt! Now I see... If that's so... This might work!"
When she regained consciousness that time, she told her hosts, "I think he figured it out. Let's not wait any longer." They agreed, and after the three disguised themselves, they drove to a small city known as Domino.
Mai knocked on his apartment door. After a moment, the door opened and she heard a polite and cautious voice greet them. "Can I help you?"
"We hope so," said Anzu. "Our friend is sick, and we think you might have the cure."
Shizuka's hair blew back as the door was nearly slammed in their faces. "Not so fast!" Mai said, and Shizuka heard something hit the door, keeping it open. Probably her trademark boots leaving a dent in the wood. "We're not going to hurt you."
"Please go," Ryou said, backing away.
"I'm sorry we came here without asking." Shizuka felt she had to take control of the situation; she was the one who'd caused it, after all. "My name is Shizuka, and I was locked in the Lab for three months. These two helped me escape, and now we're trying to save everyone else."
"...How did you find me?"
She waved a hand over her eyes. "I have the disease, but I won't get too close, okay? I saw some visions, and-"
"Okay. Come in."
"Eh?"
"I'll trust you three, but for all of our sakes we should stop talking about this where we could be overheard."
He offered them seats in the front room and even brewed them tea. Shizuka explained a little more about what she'd seen of Ryou, then Anzu asked why he was searching for a cure.
"I think you three must realize this isn't a naturally occurring disease. KaibaCorp's pharmaceutical company was researching both science and, for lack of a better term, black magic. I know it sounds crazy, but just hear me out."
"You decided to trust us, so we'll trust you," Anzu assured him.
"Thank you. Let me start at the beginning. My father is an archeologist, and he gave me a golden artifact from Egypt when I was young." Shizuka heard the clink of metal on metal and guessed he was showing it off. "It's more than a piece of jewelry. It has... power. And it isn't the only item of its kind, as I discovered when tracing its history. There are six others, all originating in a village in Egypt. According to the lore I've read, they give mysterious powers to their wielders. My ring, for instance, reacts to the proximity of other items. But until a couple of years ago, I wasn't sure those tales were true, or that any other items existed.
"One of my classmates was Seto Kaiba, heir to KaibaCorp. He never paid attention to anyone else, so I was surprised when I caught him watching me one day. I had the ring out and was examining it, and I could tell by looking at him that he knew it wasn't an ordinary item. I asked him about it later, but he denied knowing anything about it. Now that he'd sparked my curiosity again, I tried to find out more about the ring. I tried to see if it had any connection to KaibaCorp, and after a lot of trouble, I found out that six items like my ring were in the company's possession.
"I... I'm not entirely sure what happened next," Ryou admitted. "It was like I was in a trance, and then... I had a disc in my hand. When I put it into my computer, I found information about an experiment that had taken place years ago, and a note of concern about how the resulting chemicals were disposed."
Mai asked, "You're saying that the experiment has something to do with these items?"
"Yes. Like I said, the items have power, and the pollution from experiments performed on them is what caused this disease. But I think the items are also the source of a cure."
"This sounds crazy," Mai said. "But the whole disease is crazy. Seeing and hearing things that are actually happening somewhere else..."
"How can they cure it?" Shizuka asked, not wanting them to get off-topic. She didn't care if it sounded crazy; not much could phase her at this point.
"It's simple... in a way. If the items are destroyed, all seven of them, their effects will be erased. This includes the disease they caused. But first they have to be gathered, and then we have to figure out how to destroy them. Something simple, like burying or melting them, won't do the job."
"First things first, then," Mai declared. "We get the items. You said KaibaCorp has them?"
"My ring reacts most strongly around the Lab, so I think they're there."
"They've added so much security since we broke in, though," Anzu said. "This won't be easy."
"I'm sure you can do it," Ryou encouraged them. "When you do get the items, we'll have to work fast, because KaibaCorp will want them back. Meeting here again might not be safe, so go here instead." Shizuka heard him rip off a piece of paper and scribble something on it. "Good luck."
"Thank you so much," Shizuka said, bowing politely in his direction before they left.
/.../
Based on Mai and Anzu's information and Shizuka's knowledge of the Lab, they had a good idea of where the items would be. They also knew getting them out would be next to impossible. Breaking into an outer dorm was one thing; stealing the Lab's precious items from the center of its research facility seemed hopeless.
"We can't do this alone," Anzu said.
"Of course we can!" Mai snapped. "And we're not alone if we're together."
"I don't know, Mai, maybe Anzu is right," said Shizuka. "This is really dangerous. What if..."
"Well?"
"No, nevermind." Shizuka knew her idea was both silly and selfish.
"You can tell us," Anzu said. "What is it?"
"What if we got help from... Katsuya? You said he was really good at breaking and entering and he's helped you before so maybe if we-"
Her rambling was cut off by Mai. "Jonouchi's good, but I don't know if he's that good. Still, it's a start. That's not a bad idea at all, Shizuka."
Shizuka beamed, already imagining her belated reunion with her brother.
Finding Katsuya's address was much easier than finding Ryou's. Shizuka became anxious as they drove west, following the blazing sun. What if her brother had forgotten her? It'd been so long, she wouldn't be able to blame him.
They wound up in an old, poverty-stricken neighborhood. Lewd comments and catcalls were shouted at them, making Anzu cover Shizuka's ears. Mai parked on a side street and said, "No way am I letting anyone touch my car. You take Shizuka up to his apartment, Anzu, and if there's any trouble call me."
Shizuka asked, "Will you be okay here alone?"
"Don't underestimate me," Mai smirked.
Anzu took Shizuka by the arm and they walked into a building in desperate need of air conditioning. She breathed in dust as they headed up a flight of stairs and sneezed loudly. Anzu said, "Room twenty-one. This is it. Do you want me to knock?"
"No, I want to." She raised a fist and tapped on the door gently. No one came, so she rapped with more force.
"I got it, Jonouchi," someone said, opening the door.
Anzu cried, "Yugi! I can't believe it!"
"Anzu!" The two embraced, with Shizuka standing awkwardly aside.
"Can we come in?" Anzu asked.
"Of course. Um, this is?"
"You'll find out in a minute."
The three walked into a messy bedroom. When Shizuka stumbled over a pile of comic books, she decided it would be safest to just stand still. Loud sound effects were coming from a television in the center of the room, and two guys were exchanging playful banter over the noise. "No way you're winning this round, Atem!"
"Hmmph, that's what you said the last five times we played, and you still haven't beaten me."
"Yeah, but this time I- Anzu? What?"
"Jonouchi, if you don't look at the screen of course you're going to lose- oh, hey, Anzu!" Both abandoned the game and crowded around them. Anzu greeted them, then directed their attention to Shizuka, who was shyly clinging to Anzu from behind. When she stepped out, she heard Katsuya gasp. Arms drew her in and she received a crushing hug.
"Shizuka," her brother murmured. "It's you."
"Katsuya!" Shizuka threw her arms around him and buried her face in his shoulder.
"Shizuka?" she heard the one named Atem question.
"Yep. Meet Jonouchi's younger sister."
When they finally pulled away from each other, Katsuya said, "I don't get it. Why are you here, after all this time? I mean, I'm super glad! But what happened? Is everything okay?"
It had been so many years, but it seemed her brother hadn't changed much. He was still doting over her and making sure she was okay. Shizuka's shyness and nervousness fled, replaced by sheer joy. But she wasn't sure how to explain the situation, especially in a way that would keep him from rushing the Lab on his own and trying to beat up the scientists who'd hurt her.
Fortunately, Anzu took the lead. They sat down and listened as she explained everything from how she and Mai had been challenging the Lab for months to how Shizuka had led them to someone who could potentially cure everyone. Katsuya, to his credit, only interrupted once to denounce the Lab, and he hugged Shizuka again just to prove to himself she had escaped and was safe.
"To think all that's happening where we used to go to school together," Yugi said. "We have to stop it. We knew about the epidemic, of course, but the Lab's not been portrayed negatively at all in the news. They always say that they're looking for a cure for the ones they're quarantining."
"A total lie. If anything, they might expose others just to have more research subjects. Oh, and while we're on that note, you'll have to be careful around Shizuka and me, since we're both contagious."
"That doesn't matter. We're going to fight this," said Atem. "Did you have a plan in mind, Anzu?"
"Well, we have a goal in mind. But with you two on board," she said to the twins, "I know we'll come up with an amazing plan to finish the job. We have to break into the Lab and get the items Ryou told us about."
"There's no time to lose," said Atem. "Let's go."
Yugi and Atem talked so quickly in the backseat it was hard to keep up. Half the time they didn't bother to finish their sentences, but the other would instantly understand the line of thought and continue it himself.
Mai eventually got fed up with Jonouchi's profuse thanks for saving Shizuka. "Shut it. We're even now, aren't we?" But Shizuka thought she was glad to see her brother again, too, if the amiable conversation that followed was any indication. They traded jokes and insults with ease.
They stopped once along the way at Jonouchi's request, meeting up with his friends Honda and Otogi. They were more than willing to help and followed behind Mai on Honda's motorcycle.
Night had fallen by the time they reached Mai and Anzu's house. "Should we go at night?" Yugi asked. "We'll have the darkness to cover us, but security will probably be tougher..."
He and Atem started discussing the pros and cons of different timings for their infiltration. "Yeah, that's great and all," Mai said, waving them inside, "but we don't even have a plan yet."
"But we do," said Yugi in surprise.
"Care to enlighten us?" Mai replied impatiently.
"One word," Atem grinned. "Decoy."
/.../
At midnight they reached the outskirts of the city the Lab resided in. They didn't get any further, though, because a van was blocking the road and another one sidled up next to the convertible when they stopped.
Shizuka listened nervously as a window rolled down and a serious, cold voice spoke. "Mai Kujaku. You agreed to inform me of any future plans."
"I meant that as much as I'm sure you did, Seto," she scoffed. "Now have your men move. We have a prison to liberate."
"You'll get locked up before phase one of... whatever brilliant plan you have."
Shizuka sensed someone leaning over her shoulder from the back seat. "You're wasting our time, Kaiba."
He made a small noise of disgust. "Atem. I'm not surprised someone as impulsive as Mai would seek out like company."
"I'm sure this is your roundabout way to 'improve' our plan, Kaiba, but it's not necessary. If you insist on helping, fine, but we're-"
"You're not listening," Kaiba hissed. "I've been paying attention to your movements. I know about Bakura. In fact, I brought him as a guest, though with all the occult garbage he babbles, he seems pretty useless. I don't know how he conned you into believing it."
"Did you hurt Ryou?" Shizuka gasped, a pre-emptive wave of guilt washing over her.
"No. I'm not the enemy here. KaibaCorp is, and breaking into the Lab and stealing some old relics isn't going to do anything but inspire even more heavily reinforced security."
"They aren't just relics!" Shizuka protested. "Ryou told us-"
"It's nonsense, and I won't allow this hastily thrown-together-" He broke off with a stifled groan.
"What happened?" Shizuka asked.
Ryou's calm voice answered her. "I hope I didn't actually hurt him." The car door opened and one of Kaiba's bodyguards realized it was their "guest" leaving, not their employer, and they shouted at Ryou to stop.
"Hop in, Ryou!" Mai commanded, and the backseat gained another passenger. He apologized for banging against them as Mai swerved around the van and hit the accelerator.
"Um, your wrists- are you okay?" Yugi asked.
"Don't worry about me. Kaiba had his bodyguards secure me, but there isn't a knot I can't untie!" he said proudly.
"Good thing, too. We'd never be able to work with Seto on this. How do you know him, Atem?" Mai asked.
"He's the perpetual runner-up of gaming tournaments," was the smug reply.
Mai parked the car and Honda his bike outside the Lab's boundaries. "Searchlights and guards everywhere," Anzu whispered. "Are you two ready?"
"Leave it to us," said Yugi.
As per their agreement, the swift-footed Yugi made his way to the other side of the Lab. When they heard excited shouting, they knew he'd let himself be spotted. That was when Atem revealed himself on this end. "The fu- He's over here now! Hurry up!" They could hear the confusion of the guards as they tried to pinpoint the boy who seemed to be teleporting all over the grounds. When they were completely distracted, the rest of them were ready to make their move.
"Take care of Shizuka, Anzu," Katsuya said.
"No way! I mean, I'm going in too."
"I'll stay with her." Shizuka recognized that voice as Otogi's.
"All right, but don't get any funny ideas." Katsuya, Anzu, Mai, and Honda raced away, leaving Shizuka with Otogi and Ryou.
"I'm sorry you had to stay behind," Shizuka said.
"It's nothing. I'd rather be here than fighting. But we need to conceal ourselves somewhere close to the car, just in case."
"There aren't a lot of options for that," Ryou mused. "We'll have to make due with the trees over there."
They waited in utter silence as the minutes stretched on. From their new position, they couldn't hear the commotion as well. Shizuka prayed that Yugi and Atem hadn't been caught or figured out, and that everyone else was safely slinking past the Lab's inner guards.
Ryou let out a small cry. Otogi placed an arm in front of her protectively and reported, "They're coming back. I count all six of them, but-"
"But what?" Shizuka asked fearfully.
"Yugi's bleeding pretty badly... Okay, come on, back to the car!"
He took her hand and they ran back to meet the others. They didn't have to be told to hurry into the car, and when Otogi released her to ride back with Honda on the bike, Anzu's hand took his place. She knew she was squeezing Anzu's hand painfully, but she couldn't stop. Yugi was bleeding, and the guards were right on their heels. She heard motors roaring to life as they were spotted and chased after.
"You did it, you got them," Ryou exclaimed, the metal around his neck clinking like a demonic bell. Everyone else's attention was on Yugi.
"Yugi? Yugi, wake up!" Atem ordered. Someone ripped fabric into bandages, and Shizuka bit her tongue to keep from asking how bad his wounds were. After an eternity of silence, Yugi let out a sound between a groan and a whimper.
But they weren't out of danger yet. Mai was good at disregarding traffic rules, but the guards after them had been trained to do so. "We're not going to make it," Shizuka said, heart sinking.
"We will!" Anzu said.
"Ryou, what are you doing?" Atem suddenly asked.
"I'm going to stop them," he replied simply. "With one of the items. This one should do."
"That's a... rod? What are you doing to do?" Anzu asked.
He wasn't listening. "Let see if it works like the stories say..."
"Eh? It's glowing," Anzu said.
"Perfect. Now I just..."
"The cars stopped," Atem said in disbelief. Yugi stirred again, and his attention left the road. "Yugi, hang in there!"
"They aren't following us anymore," Mai said, but she didn't slow down. A motorcycle lined up with them and Honda shouted, "The guards just got out of their cars and left! Is this a trick?"
"No," Ryou told him. "It's magic."
Thirty minutes later, they were at the address Ryou had given Mai before, that of a graveyard. They parked a few blocks away and walked to a tomb directly in the center of the tombstones, all except for Atem who stayed behind with Yugi.
"Why a graveyard?" Katsuya complained. "Maybe I should go back, and uh, check on Yugi and-"
"Are you scared?" Shizuka teased.
"Don't disappoint your little sister," Honda warned him. "Show her your courage."
"What courage?" Otogi muttered. "Ow!"
"Stop it, all of you," Mai snapped. "It's time to destroy these items for good."
The tomb smelled of mold and decay. There was just enough room for them all to gather inside. "Now what, Ryou?" Anzu asked.
"I need to paint some symbols on the floor, and I need someone to chant as I do it."
Anzu volunteered, and she sounded out the words of some strange language as Ryou worked his way around the room, painting here and there. Shizuka was just glad he wasn't using his blood, and wondered if she'd ever understand how his research of the items and the epidemic had led him to do something like she'd seen in her first vision.
"It's all set up. If we burn the items within this circle, they'll... they'll... I won't let you do that."
The soft, polite voice warped into a fierce whisper. Shizuka felt her limbs freeze, and from the cries of the others, she knew they were in a similar situation.
"Ryou? What are you doing?" she cried.
"I'm not Ryou," said the voice so similar to that of the one who claimed the name. "I'm merely his... mentor, you could say. He's been a perfect host for one who lives in the items, until now. To think he'd actually try to destroy them... Well, now that I have all seven, I can make sure nothing happens to them."
"But they can't exist! If they do, everyone will still be sick, and the epidemic will keep spreading," Shizuka said.
"And if the items are destroyed, I won't exist any longer. Are you saying that's fine?" Cold fingers tilted her chin up and she did her best to glare with her dead eyes. She refused to tremble in his grasp.
She said, "I don't know what you are, but you can't use Ryou. It's his body."
"Don't touch her, you creep," her brother shouted from across the tomb. He sounded like he was just waking up, and Shizuka wouldn't have been surprised if he'd fainted from all the occult stuff he'd hated since they were little kids and Shizuka could scare him with made-up ghost stories.
"I'm okay, Katsuya."
"None of you will be okay in a minute," Ryou's possessor said darkly. Shizuka tensed up for whatever he planned on doing, but he released her chin and a second later, she heard a body hit the floor. At the same time she regained control over her body.
"Katsuya? Mai? Anzu? Are you all okay?" she asked. "Is Ryou- I mean, whoever-"
"Out cold," came the voice Shizuka now recognized as Kaiba's. "Serves him right for earlier."
"But that wasn't Ryou, it couldn't have been," argued Shizuka.
"I think I've made it clear that I'm not interested in any occult talk. I do know these items have some poisonous substance in them, and that they must be disposed of safely."
"Then just let us burn them in these circles, like Ryou said," Otogi requested. "If they survive, you can have them to deal with."
"Fine. Let's get this ridiculous act over with."
The items were lined up in the circle and a flammable liquid poured over them from a container Ryou'd described earlier as enchanted. One match was all it took for a fire to spring up, and Shizuka was glad the floor and walls around her were concrete. They all pressed their backs to the wall as the fire burned out.
When it stopped, Kaiba said, "Great, now hand them over." She watched them pick up the items and put them back in a box. She watched them grudgingly hand it to Kaiba.
She watched all this, because she could see.
/.../
They never found out what Kaiba did with the items, nor did they care. The proof that they'd lost their powers was in Shizuka's ability to see again.
None of them got any sleep that night, having travelled far north after the graveyard incident to a hospital Honda's sister worked at, where they knew Yugi could get stitches without any of the Lab's workers finding them. It was possible they were still wanted, though Ryou, who'd woken up with a headache and a kind demeanor once more, promised that the guards who'd directly chased them had forgotten their names and faces. "One of the rod's powers is to alter memory."
"Those items sound awful," Shizuka said. Why they'd been created in the first place was a mystery even Ryou didn't know the answer too. He even looked a little troubled at the loss of his necklace, but he assured them that he knew this was for the best.
They all ended up crashing at Mai and Anzu's house, sleeping until late afternoon. "I don't understand," she whispered upon rising. "Why can I see again?"
"You mean because you were blind even before the disease?" Mai asked. Shizuka realized she was curled up between her and Anzu. She'd been so exhausted in the early dawn hours she hadn't realized she'd just followed them into their bedroom.
"Yeah. I thought even when we got rid of the items, I'd be blind."
"It looks like, in a way, the disease did a good thing," Anzu said. "It must have overridden your actual blindness, and so when it was cured, so was your sight." She shrugged. "It all worked out, right?"
"The Lab must be in a mess right now," Mai gloated. "All their prisoners being cured is a disaster for their research. They'll have to lay off the quarantine pretense now and let everyone go."
"Thank goodness." Shizuka wrapped an arm around each of them. "Thank you both for saving me."
"Thank you for saving us all," Anzu replied. They snuggled in closer to her, and Shizuka felt warm through and through.
The house emptied out throughout the day. Atem and Yugi returned to the game shop that doubled as their home and Honda and Otogi sped off in the opposite direction. Ryou was asked for the tenth time if he wanted to make sure he didn't have a concussion from taking Kaiba's briefcase to his head, but he assured them he felt fine, and proved it by promptly walking into the screen door. Anzu took pity on him and drove him home, and when she returned, it was the three of them and Katsuya.
He started apologizing out of nowhere. "I'm sorry I didn't see you for all these years, Shizuka. I tried to find you, I swear, but I never could. You know how Mom and Dad felt about each other..."
"I'm sorry, too," she said, hugging him again. "But we found each other now."
"So... What're you gonna do?" he asked.
"When everything calms down, I'd like to go back to school," Shizuka said. "I'll never catch up in my honors classes though," she added glumly.
"How do you deal with having a sibling that's so much smarter and prettier and kinder than you, Jonouchi?" Anzu teased.
"Hmmph, I don't care! I'm proud of her."
"And I'm proud of you!" Shizuka said.
"You are?"
"Yeah. You're brave, like Mai. Well, maybe not that brave," she smiled.
Katsuya scowled as the three women laughed together, but he gave in and smiled too before long. That day was the first of many Shizuka knew she would spend making up lost time with her older brother.
And it was the first of many she'd devote to Mai and Anzu.